US-based venture capital firm Pereg Ventures reached the first close of its first fund today, having raised $25m from backers including information services provider Nielsen.
Pereg Ventures Fund I will provide funding at series A and B stage for market intelligence and analytics technology companies operating in the US and Israel. Additional limited partners for the fund and its final target have not been disclosed.
Nielsen will seek to offer Pereg’s portfolio companies access to corporate partners and information assets across the media, telecommunications, consumer packaged goods and retail sectors.
Itzhak Fisher, chairman and general partner of Pereg Ventures, said: “Although Pereg Ventures is a fully independent venture capital firm, Nielsen is providing a significant strategic investment in support of the fund’s launch. This is part of a broader portfolio of innovation initiatives including Nielsen Innovate, an incubator that nurtures firms near their inception.”
Fisher also sits on Nielsen Innovate’s board of directors. Another of the firm’s partners, Mark Leiter, is Nielsen’s chief strategy officer and also acts as a venture partner for the company.
Pereg’s first two portfolio companies are retail analytics company RetailNext, which last disclosed funding in July 2014, and Zollo, an online crowdsourced price comparison platform that secured $900,000 in funding from Nielsen Innovate in 2013.